NYC controller warns of fiscal storm clouds, chides de Blasio

Controller Scott Stringer is pictured during a press conference last April. (Jefferson Siegel / New York Daily News)

Predicting an economic slowdown, the city's top fiscal watchdog chided Mayor de Blasio on Friday for doing too little to address the likelihood of budget shortfalls in coming years.

Controller Scott Stringer warned if nothing more is done to increase the city’s budget reserves, seniors and children will be the first to suffer in the event of a downturn.

Advertisement

“We should have gotten to work on this five years ago,” he said in a not so-veiled shot at de Blasio, who took control of City Hall in 2014. “History tells us when cuts come, it's our libraries, it's our senior centers, it's our after-school programs that are the first to close.”

Stringer, who has his eyes on a mayoral run, honed in on the city’s Buidlings, Correction and Homeless Services departments as area’s in dire need of belt-tightening. He pointed to how during de Blasio’s tenure, the Buildings Department budget has spiked 62 percent with the agency’s headcount to 1,565 employees.

Budgeting more money hasn’t led to improved results, either, according to his budget analysis. Despite the Correction Department’s increased spending per inmate — from $117,000 in 2008 to $300,000 in 2018 — violent incidents there have tripled during the same period.

The city’s handling of its homeless crisis offers another example. Under de Blasio, spending has more than doubled — from $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2014 to $2.9 billion in 2020 — as the number of people living in homeless shelters has ballooned from 51,770 in 2014 to 60,366 this year.

A de Blasio spokesman described it as an attempt to “score cheap political points.”

Stringer did acknowledge de Blasio’s intent to re-institute Bloomberg-era PEGs — Programs to End the Gap — to save $750 million, but said it’s not enough. With spending projected to grow 2.3 percent from 2019 to 2023 under de Blasio’s budget, revenues are projected to grow, but would trail behind at 1.8 percent. That means the city will face a $3.3 billion shortfall in 2023, he predicted.

Stringer’s report did not include an analysis of ThriveNYC, First Lady Chirlane McCray’s $850 million mental health initiative, but he expressed concerns over what he described as the program’s “lack of transparency.”

On Friday, he sent de Blasio a letter demanding financial data on the program.

“It's time to raise issues of transparency and also accountability,” he said.